Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THE LAST DAYS OF GOOD PEOPLE de A.T. Sayre

A bittersweet science fiction novel for fans of Becky Chambers and Ted Chiang’s Arrival that contemplates civilization, determinism, and friendship as a scientist is forced to decide whether to intervene and help a dying species.

THE LAST DAYS OF GOOD PEOPLE
by A.T. Sayre
JAB Books, February 2025
(via JABberwocky)

On a small corner of a doomed world, where the capricious laws of nature can’t be reversed, a civilization arrives at the end of its days.

Warin is one of a small team charting the demise of the last few inhabitants of Retti 4, a distant planet in the throes of an extinction-level virus. It’s not Warin’s job to intervene in natural evolution or to question the whims of a cruel universe. He is only to observe and report. Until Warin actually steps foot on Retti 4.

Not the primitive species Warin believed them to be, the rettys are an industrious and ethical lot working together in a close-knit farming village. Lacking the human traits of fear, suspicion, and aggression, they are welcoming, curious, and eager to share their traditions—even in the shadow of a tragedy that they, and Warin, are powerless to stop.

As they embrace Warin into their fold, his compassion grows. So does his own self-discovery. For Warin, far away from Earth, comes a deeper understanding of friendship, civilization, and the true meaning of humanity. And above all, the peace and profound strength it takes to accept the inevitable.

A.T. Sayre has been writing in some form or other ever since he was ten years old. From plays to poems, teleplays to comic books, he has tried his hand at pretty much every medium imaginable. His work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Haven Speculative, Aurealis, Andromeda Spaceways, and StarShipSofa. His first short story collection, Signals in The Static, was published in May 2024 by Lethe Press.

ALL THE LITTLE HOUSES de May Cobb

From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.

ALL THE LITTLE HOUSES
by May Cobb
Sourcebooks Landmark, January 2026

Adults can behave badly too…

It’s the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can’t get for herself… well, that’s what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she’d so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh’s entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble.

Who will be left standing when the dust settles?

May Cobb is the bestselling author of The Hunting Wives, a series currently available on Netflix, as well as The Hollywood Assistant, My Summer Darlings, A Likeable Woman, and Big Woods. Her books have received attention from Book of The Month, The Today Show, O, The Oprah Magazine, and more. She has an M.A. from San Francisco State University and her essays and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Texas Highways, and more. She lives in Austin with her family.

EVERY STORY IS A LOVE STORY de Imbolo Mbue

Imbolo Mbue’s long awaited epic new novel, about loss, sorrow, forgiveness, redemption and surviving unspeakable tragedy.

EVERY STORY IS A LOVE STORY
by Imbolo Mbue
Random House, Fall 2026
(via Writers House)

Credit: Kiriko Sano

Three years ago, Wolo’s pregnant wife was killed in a tragic car accident. In an instant, his great love was gone, and so was their shining future: the twins they were expecting, the PhD she was on the cusp of finishing, and all the plans they’ve had for a long, happy life. At times the loss seemed insurmountable, but with the help from his tight knit family Wolo has slowly rebuilt a semblance of a life, he goes to work, hangs out with a small circle of friends, and fends off the matchmaking efforts of the older women in his family. His sorrow never leaves him and neither does the anger towards Victoria, the woman who was behind the wheel that terrible day. His wife was not just the love of his life, she became the daughter his mother never had, beloved cousin to all members of his family, her loss has left them all devastated and angry.

Then one day a letter arrives, unbidden, threatening to upend his life once again. It is from Victoria. Wolo’s pastor tells him the letter is the work of the devil; his mother expressly forbids him from even reading it; his whole family is against it. But Wolo does read it and agrees to meet with the person who killed his wife. When he does, the compassion and deep remorse of the woman he meets surprises him. He is not the only person whose life was shattered by the accident and he begins to wonder if forgiving Victoria is the only road to healing for them both.

Moving, empathetic, insightful and compassionate EVERY STORY IS A LOVE STORY charts the uneven path from heartbreak to hope; from standing up to one’s own family and following one’s own path, to love lost and love found.

Imbolo Mbue is the author of the New York Times bestseller Behold the Dreamers, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Her second novel, How Beautiful We Were, about a fictional African village’s fight against an American oil company, was named by the New York Times as “One of the 10 Best Books” of 2021.

CLEAR WATER de Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes

An atmospheric and mesmerizing literary thriller that follows a woman’s return to her small town, and the secrets of its haunted past. For fans of Liz Moore and Samantha Schweblin.

CLEAR WATER
by Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes
Flatiron Books, November 2026

Alma Figueroa, recently furloughed from her job as a paralegal and still trying to find her footing after a divorce, is driving home one night when a girl dressed in white appears out of nowhere. Afraid that the girl is injured, Alma takes her to the hospital. The girl is unharmed, but won’t speak and has no identification. Alma is determined to help her, but then the girl disappears without a trace. She is not the only girl in white to be seen. Reports come in of girls appearing in the snow, in the woods, and in the middle of roads. And while none of their faces match the photos on the missing persons posters scattered all over town, evidence of neglect echoes in their unwavering silence.

As Alma starts to investigate, she soon uncovers something larger, something the town has been actively ignoring, that just might connect back to her sister Kayla’s death when they were in high school. When another girl from town goes missing, Alma must figure out what the girls in white are trying to tell her before it is too late.

Clear Water unfolds over three timelines, moving between the present-day appearance of the girls in white, Alma’s return to the small town several years earlier, and the teenage years in which her sister Kayla gets pulled into addiction. With a haunting quality, a literary feel, and elements of mystery and noir, this lush and lyrical book is a poignant story about sisters, secrets, grief, and what it means when the people in authority continue to overlook the most vulnerable in their community.

Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maryland and author of Are We Ever Our Own: Stories (winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize, 2022) and The Sleeping World (Touchstone, 2016). She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay, the Millay Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, and was a Bernard O’Keefe Scholar in Fiction at Bread Loaf.

TREPPE AUS PAPIER de Henrik Szántó

What stories would the walls tell, if they could speak? A house and its inhabitants, from the Nazi era to the present day. For fans of Imre Kertész, Saša Stanišić and Jenny Erpenbeck.

TREPPE AUS PAPIER
(Paper Stairs)
by Henrik Szántó
Blessing Verlag/PRH Germany, August 2025

When 15-year-old Nele Bittner and 90-year-old Irma Thon meet in the stairwell of a four-storey period building, their conversation breathes life into what Nele always thought was boring old history.

The narrator of Nele and Irma’s story is the house itself, whose walls, hallways, pipes and nooks and crannies harbour the memories of all those who have lived in it over the past hundred years. Irma has a special connection to the building: she and her Nazi-supporting parents lived here when she was a child. Nele, meanwhile, lives on the top floor, in a flat once occupied by the Sternheim family – and Irma feels responsible for what happened to them.

For this house, everything happens simultaneously: when little Ruth Sternheim skips down the stairs, the house remembers the SA who, years later, will smash the window of the Sternheims’ ground-floor watch shop with their truncheons. While Irma looks back on her life, Nele’s questioning of her own family brings to light things they had hoped to suppress.

A daring, courageous novel about remembrance, responsibility and the shadow cast by history.

Henrik Szántó, born in 1988, is a half-Hungarian, half-Finnish author and presenter living in Hannover. He performs as a spoken word artist on stages across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and has won several fellowships. He also works as an instructor, running poetry, creative writing, public speaking and performance skills seminars, and stages events showcasing both new and experienced voices. He is particularly interested in multilingualism, remembrance and multiculturalism.